Re: New York's Crackdown on Ebikes

Roger Merriman wrote:

NFN Smith <worldoff9908@gmail.com> wrote:

Roger Merriman wrote:
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London so urban to Suburban, I’m outer london so mainly suburban, lower
speed limits 20mph is common, almost certainly and reasonably chance of it
being enforced aka speed cameras.

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Just curious -- are you inside or outside of the M25?

 Inside M25 tends to be line in the sand for if it’s London or not, are few
places it passes through what is considered london but in general it’s the
de facto border.
 So some 40/50 miles across depending on where as it’s not a perfect ring by
any means!

If I remember a map right, the shape is kind of oval, wider on the east-west axis.

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In Europe, I think that most canals tend to be done to facilitate
drainage, especially working around population density. Where I am, the
space is flat and very spread out.  Our canal system was actually built
several hundred years before the first European or Euro-American
settlers.  The Europeans modified somewhat with more modern engineering,
but for both, the intent of the canals is to move water from the river
system into places that it can be used for agricultural irrigation.
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No European Canals where for transportation of industrial materials had
fairly brief moment in history before the railways arrived, hence the tow
paths for horses.

That makes sense.  In the US, I believe the Erie Canal was built that way, to facilitate towing

 Are places where you get irrigation and drainage such as the fens where
they have drained the swamp as you where, but they aren’t the normal use
for canals which are transporting materials and goods. Are still some in
use like the ship canal between Liverpool and Manchester.

No drainage at all, as we're in the middle of the Sonora Desert. And even if the river is at flood stage (very rarely) it's not navigable. Instead, there is a dam at one point in the river, and there, the river is entirely diverted into our canal system. Everything downstream is entirely dry, except for one place that they built a lake by putting in additional dams and re-flooding a 2-mile section of the riverbed. Otherwise, the only times that there is water is on occasions when reservoirs upstream are full enough that water is let out to keep them from overfilling. Essentially, whether the river has water in it or not is a matter of flood control.
One of the effects of that is that we have several roads that simply ford the riverbed. But if the river is running, then the fords are closed, and it usually takes several weeks before everything dries up and the roads are re-opened to traffic.
The other effect of all the water diversion is that there is a lot of underground storage of water, and as a result, any water that comes out of the municipal water system is very hard, with a high mineral content.   Not a big deal for flood-watering alfalfa fields, but not especially friendly for household use.  Water that tastes bad, even if entirely safe to drink), but also hard on plumbing and water-using appliances.
Smith